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April 24, 1986 (25 years ago)
The fiscal court voted to set the Deputy County Clerk’s salary at $12,000 upon recommendation by County Judge-Executive Jack Couch. The salary setting came about after an investigation of several months after a request by County Clerk Robert Moore. The salary funds will be derived from fees of the clerk’s office.

What has had seven, or possibly eight broken noses, two blown out knees, two wrecked ankles, a few mangled toes, two ravaged hips, and an absolutely destroyed back? The answer to this riddle is my husband and I. He was a sports jock and I was a rock jock. If it involved bunting, punting, running, sprinting, jumping, tackling, passing, sliding, batting, and came with a referee, he was your man.

A young soldier and his commanding officer boarded a train and sat down next to a grandmother with her pretty young granddaughter. As the train roared through the tunnel you heard a kiss and a slap.
The commanding officer was rubbing his cheek as they rolled out of the tunnel. He was thinking, “The young lady was aiming for the soldier and hit me instead.”
The grandmother was thinking “Good for my granddaughter, standing up for herself like that, that will teach that young whippersnapper a lesson.”

The other day my husband opened up both of the closet doors in our bedroom and pointed out that my stuff has progressively crept into his closet and that I should do something about it.
“Like throw your stuff out to make more room for mine?” I asked.
Um, the answer to that would be no.
So, I got a plastic bag and started filling it with clothes I no longer wear, and then I started going through old file folders filled with notes and beginnings of columns. That always prompts a bits and pieces column, like today’s. So, here goes:

April 17, 1986 (30 years ago)
The Trimble County Public Library staff will begin re-registration of patrons on April 10, 1986, according to Librarian Patti Abell. To re-register a patron needs only to come into the library or bookmobile to fill out an application. The patron will then be given a “borrowers card.” The card is embossed with a metal plate which states the borrower’s name. In the future no one will be allowed to borrow material from the Trimble County Public Library without presenting their borrower’s card.

I recently had the idea to load the kitties in a laundry basket and carry them downstairs. Loki glanced at Bootsie with an expression which clearly said “Seriously? As if we aren’t running after them enough upstairs. Now she has the nerve to expand their range!” Heaving tandem, resigned sighs the co-mothers followed me downstairs with the basket load of furry mischief balls.

The summer of my 10th birthday found me on my grandparents’ farm in rural, Appalachian Alabama. Their farm was a collection of barns and outbuildings around a small, white frame house sitting on a hill overlooking the Coosa River. Being devout Baptists, my grandparents paid especial attention to the scriptural injunction of Genesis Chapter 9—that part about multiplying and replenishing. They obeyed that scripture 13 times of which I am aware. Their 13 children produced a bountiful supply of grandchildren of which I am one.

How much would you pay to have your prayers answered?
For the past four years, until the Seattle-based website with 1.3 million Facebook fans was taken down, people could pay the Christian Prayer Center between $9 and $35 to pray for them.
From 2011 to 2015, more than 125,000 people forked over more than $7 million for their more than 400,000 transactions/prayer requests.

April 10, 1986 (30 Years Ago)
Countywide telephone service is a luxury that Trimble County has never enjoyed. Many residents of the county who live in the outermost edges of the county cannot call the county judge’s office, the sheriff’s office or the emergency medical service without dialing long distance and having to pay the toll. But the condition is about to change. The 1986 General Assembly has passed two pieces of legislation which relate to countywide telephone service. Both bills are on the governor’s desk.

The stork has landed at our house once again. We had a specific surgery scheduled for one of our foundling cats. Unfortunately, not only do the plans of mice and men, but also desperate cat owners, sometimes go awry. Such was the case which is featured in this story.
The desperately needed surgery had to be bumped and replaced by a vet visit required by another cat. Unbeknownst to us the little lady for whom the surgery was necessary slipped outside and Cupid was lying in wait. Several weeks later the dratted stork presented us with fresh feline recruits.

Stories are swirling all around us, if we just take the time to listen. Triumphs, tragedies, dramas and comedies, the best stories are heard standing in the checkout line.
At our local Big Box hardware store I was the last in line. The cashier greeted me with the perfunctory, “How are you?”

Years ago when I did a lot of conference and retreat speaking, I was invited to speak at the annual Episcopal women’s diocesan meeting at the cathedral in downtown Orlando.
A local Episcopalian woman who had suggested my name offered to take care of all the details for me. All I had to do was show up, which is what I do best.

April 3, 1986 (30 Years Ago)
Several plans are under study at the Kentucky Department of Highways to reroute U.S. 421 as it approaches the top of Milton hill. Eventually, the state plans to construct a new bridge over the Ohio River and the highway routing plans will coordinate with the Indiana Department of Transportation’s current road system. Wade Campbell of the Kentucky Department of Highways District 5 said the relocation of the Milton-Madison bridge may take 10 to 20 years to get construction underway.

While returning from a day full of errands with my children, my eldest and I were in a conversation regarding the taste of medications. I wondered aloud why some of the prettiest colored elixirs were hiding the most abominable of flavors. It seems to be a cruel hoax to play on a trusting young child.

For years “Barney” lived at the edge of town and on the fringe of society. He ran a junk yard and lived in the middle of it. No one thought much of or about Barney. He was one of those “invisible people” that never get their day in the sun. He had no family; he never married, gruff and hard to get to know.
Every day was the same; He would get up, fix his coffee, a bowl of oatmeal, feed the dogs and get to work. He spent the day taking off the usable parts of the junked cars, then sending the shell to a smeltering plant in Birmingham.

I’ve heard it said that a man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he like.
If I could do whatever I like, I’d eat several massive cinnamon rolls every morning for breakfast, spend the day on my couch watching reruns of “Gilmore Girls,” punch a few people I know in the nose, never pay my taxes or dust my house.
That’s just off the top of my head.
Most of us think freedom is doing anything we want, making our own rules, not submitting to any type of authority -- if it feels good, do it.